Mind you if the facts are not there that makes it even more difficult, eh?

Again, your 'facts' leave a lot to be desired. But you go on and do your thing, it's been a number of posts since you quoted yourself or reposted the same material for the 14th time so you should probably do that.

For the next three years, projected spending growth is limited to 1.5 per cent – at best a stretch goal. Debt to gross domestic product will have grown to more than 18 per cent by 2015, from 13 per cent in 2009. This remains far better than Ontario and Quebec, but nothing to be complacent about. Annual interest charges today are almost $3-billion and forecast to be more than $4-billion.

Premier Christy Clark has tossed a bone to her base with the promise of a balanced budget, while stealing from the opposition on taxes and social spending promises. This is textbook political triangulation. There were so many New Democratic party policies in the budget document that people in the lock-up briefing joked that this was NDP leader Adrian Dix’s first budget.

But by raising taxes and bootlegging much of the NDP’s platform, the self-described “free enterprise” Liberal party demolished its own political narrative along with any residual credibility. The key points of B.C. Liberal differentiation relative to the NDP are gone.

If nothing else, Ms. Clark’s Liberals have been all politics and public relations, all the time. That’s why it is very odd that Tuesday’s budget was not linked to the government’s “Jobs Plan” for which it is spending millions in pre-election advertising. Nor was it linked to last week’s Throne Speech.

The B.C. Liberals once had a claim to economic realism. The Throne Speech undermined that, too. Its centrepiece was the assertion that liquefied natural gas could contribute a whopping $1-trillion to provincial GDP over 30 years. Anchored on the dubious prediction that government revenues would exceed $130-billion over 30 years, based on new taxes on an industry that today doesn’t exist, the Clark government is flogging a new “prosperity fund.”

Without any evidence or tangible investment commitments to back up their claim, the Liberals say the province is in for a windfall that will “transform” British Columbia. Most others call it the “fantasy fund.”

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, this budget will make it more expensive to invest and do business in the province.

An assortment of other taxes (disguised as fees) has also swelled. Medical services premiums are up, hydro rates are up, and property-tax exceptions are being closed. No consequential spending cuts are being made. Presenting a balanced budget only became hypothetically possible with the declaration that certain assets would be sold. However, we don’t know which assets, when they might be sold, or for how much.

Tax, fee and royalty increases will have an immediate effect on business and have already drawn sharp criticism from business groups. Jock Finlayson of the B.C. Business Council said, “This is an inopportune time to be adding to the tax burden facing business and industry. Further erosion of the province’s overall competitiveness will have negative longer-term implications for jobs and the economy.”

A day before the Clark government tabled its budget, former Bank of Montreal economist Tim O’Neill signed off on its revenue forecast assumptions. You know a government has a very serious credibility problem when it feels compelled to ask an outsider to vouch for its honesty and competence. Such is the deteriorated state of the B.C. Liberals.

The Liberal decline can be traced to Gordon Campbell’s decision to spring a new harmonized sales tax on an unsuspecting public immediately after his party won the last election. His caucus soon drove him out of office. Radio talk-show host Christy Clark won the race as a perceived “outsider” and HST opponent. Her bubbly personality and time away from the cabinet table created a sufficient distance from Mr. Campbell. It’s been downhill ever since.

Ms. Clark and her Liberals are betting that voters have short memories and even shorter attention spans. What we’re witnessing is the last desperate gasp of a government with the unmistakable hallmarks of a fin de régime.

Again, your 'facts' leave a lot to be desired. But you go on and do your thing, it's been a number of posts since you quoted yourself or reposted the same material for the 14th time so you should probably do that.

The facts only leave something to be desired if they are disregarded.

To err is human - but to really screw up you need a computer.

Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

Illegitimi non carborundum.

Never try to teach a pig to sing - it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

VICTORIA — Premier Christy Clark’s media availability in her Victoria office Tuesday began with a question about whether the B.C. Liberals were exploring a 10-year deal with nurses a mere 11 weeks ahead of an election in which her government might be driven from office.

Yes they were.

“We are in very early stages in talking about that,” Clark told reporters. “Just like we want to find an agreement with teachers for a 10-year deal, we want see if we can find an agreement with nurses for a 10-year deal.

“Labour peace is good for patients,” the premier continued. “The idea was (to start) working with the nurses’ union as I do think there could be an appetite there.”

All very exploratory, Clark emphasized. All very hush-hush too. The Liberals even kept the CEOs of the six provincial health authorities out of the loop, which prompted a strong letter of protest once they caught wind of what was up through other channels.

“We are informed that officials from the (government) are in the process of developing a new collective agreement with the nurses’ union which would have an extended term of up to 10 years,” they wrote in a letter that was obtained by my colleague Jonathan Fowlie and published Tuesday in The Vancouver Sun.

They went on to complain — “we are alarmed” — about provisions that would preclude the six authorities from sharing in any improvements in efficiency in the system and would lock in the terms for 10 years with no opening to renegotiate.

“This may deny us the ability to respond to the needs of the system, new technology, different care delivery models and service innovations,” they wrote.

“We have also learned that binding arbitration may be the mechanism which would resolve periodic re-openers under the agreement.”

And all this at a time when the federal and provincial governments are both capping the share of dollars allocated to health care.

“Our concern is that we are charged with managing health care in the province in a constrained financial environment,” wrote the six CEOs. “Any benefits which may arise from any health system redesign should be applied to the cost of providing care ... It would also be irresponsible to allow a third party to determine compensation under the agreement.”

In defence, Clark reiterated that the talks were only of an exploratory nature, and “if there’s any interest in it, we’ll approach the health authorities and get their input into the negotiation on it.”

Never mind that the nurses appeared disinterested. Did she even have a mandate to pursue a 10-year deal on any terms this close to an election?

“Nobody was asking me that question six months ago,” she replied. “ I’m focused on governing as I have been for the last two years. As the premier, it is my job to make sure we continue to govern every single day, so that’s what I’m doing.”

But hers is a bit of a lame duck government, is it not?

“That’s a rhetorical question, is it not?”

Seriously, how could she presume to lock the government into a 10-year deal, this close to an election she might lose?

“At what point does a government stop governing? At what point does a government decide that all you are going to do is campaign? The mandate is until May 14 and obviously there is a writ period before that.

“We are going to continue to govern,” she told reporters. “Unless one of you knows that there’s a date at which the government needs to stop governing — and maybe I can wait for you guys to let me know when that is, because I haven’t seen that in legislation anywhere.”

Skip asking the press gallery when the mandate runs out. Here’s an opinion, well expressed on the floor of the legislature a dozen years ago, as another government was on its last legs.

“Let me be clear: This government has no mandate to govern. This government is illegitimate in the eyes of the public today. They have no moral right to govern. This government has no mandate to pass legislation, no mandate to make appointments, no mandate to pass a budget.

“So I want to be clear that following an election, should the Opposition be elected to government, we reserve the right to suspend legislation so it can be properly reviewed, to amend legislation or to repeal it. We reserve the right to dismiss any new appointments that this government makes, because this government’s regime is over.”

The author of that March 19, 2001 quasi-stop-work-order for the then New Democratic Party government? Fellow named Gordon Campbell, then the leader of an Opposition caucus of B.C. Liberals that included a rookie MLA named Christy Clark. Both would be elected to government in a matter of weeks.

As it was then with an NDP government down in the polls and running out the clock, so it should be today with the Liberals.

A government in this much trouble, mere weeks from an election, has a mandate to go through the motions — maintain programs, deal with emergencies, and make the best possible pitch to the electorate. But pursuit of deals stretching years beyond election day is the height of presumption.

I'm not sure I understood this statement quite the way she intended it

Seriously, two years of nothing, and now they come out with a whole laundry list of pie-in-the-sky ideas that someone in marketing thought would sell, it's preposterous. And these ads they're running, who do they think they're fooling? I'm supposed to believe that every government in the western hemisphere has collapsed, but the Liberals have saved BC? That they're the only thing stopping the invading army of spooky black monoliths? Do they think we don't understand that when they say "low taxes" in that grammatically incorrect statement, it's because they aren't able to say "lowering taxes" because they're actually raising taxes, but "low taxes" is a subjective and meaningless phrase, so they're able to use that?

The Devil Himself could run against "Today's B.C. Liberals" and I would probably not vote in that election, but if I no choice it would be the Devil.

“Let me be clear: This government has no mandate to govern. This government is illegitimate in the eyes of the public today. They have no moral right to govern. This government has no mandate to pass legislation, no mandate to make appointments, no mandate to pass a budget.

“So I want to be clear that following an election, should the Opposition be elected to government, we reserve the right to suspend legislation so it can be properly reviewed, to amend legislation or to repeal it. We reserve the right to dismiss any new appointments that this government makes, because this government’s regime is over.”

"From 1992 through to 2000, during the New Democrats' nine full years in power (which excludes the last two months of 1991, and the first four months of 2001), B.C.'s GDP grew by an annual average of three per cent.Under Gordon Campbell's BC Liberals, provincial GDP from 2001 through 2008 rose by an annual average of 2.8 per cent. However, if we include the Royal Bank's estimates for 2009 and 2010, that number slips to 2.4 per cent."

I'm not sure I understood this statement quite the way she intended it

Seriously, two years of nothing, and now they come out with a whole laundry list of pie-in-the-sky ideas that someone in marketing thought would sell, it's preposterous. And these ads they're running, who do they think they're fooling? I'm supposed to believe that every government in the western hemisphere has collapsed, but the Liberals have saved BC? That they're the only thing stopping the invading army of spooky black monoliths? Do they think we don't understand that when they say "low taxes" in that grammatically incorrect statement, it's because they aren't able to say "lowering taxes" because they're actually raising taxes, but "low taxes" is a subjective and meaningless phrase, so they're able to use that?

The Devil Himself could run against "Today's B.C. Liberals" and I would probably not vote in that election, but if I no choice it would be the Devil.

yup the Liberials have saved BC by running a decifict 3 out of 4 years. Thankfully our tax payer dollars paid for an Ad telling us how how great our gov't is, otherwise I might think they were the worst gov't this province has ever seen.

Play Clash on Clans on your phone? Join the CDC Clan "happycanuck".

"What is the good of having a nice house without a decent planet to put it on?" ~ Henry David Thoreau

yup the Liberials have saved BC by running a decifict 3 out of 4 years. Thankfully our tax payer dollars paid for an Ad telling us how how great our gov't is, otherwise I might think they were the worst gov't this province has ever seen.

Dont forget about BC's debt. It has grown every year since the BC Liberals took power in 2001. It has now doubled from when they got in to over 35 billion. Nice fiscal management Liberals *rolleyes*